


For Us Ones Inbetween

by eudaimon



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:27:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eudaimon/pseuds/eudaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kent's always felt like something was wrong with him - relationships never did come easily to him.  His sister, on the other hand...</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Us Ones Inbetween

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alizarin_nyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alizarin_nyc/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I really, really hope that you like this - clearly, it got away from me wordcount wise. HAPPY YULETIDE! It was such a joy to write in this fandom for you <3 I've been wanting to write Kent/Chandler for ages, so this was an absolute pleasure.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it - I loved writingit for you ♥

> FUCK  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> So, I did it. Actually asked him out. I'm an idiot.

 

re: FUCK  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

Wait. Wait. WHAT DID HE SAY, DICKHEAD?!!?!?!!

 

> re: re: FUCK  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> "I'd love to.".

 

re: re: re: FUCK  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*

(That drink - the first, intended drink - never happened because the van blew up and burned with the unexpected heat of a supernova, putting a massive sort of spanner in the works. Suddenly, there was a lot of paperwork to do. Because of course there was. God forbid the Metropolitan Police streamline _anything_. Bastards).

"Another time?" said Chandler, silhouetted in the doorway of his office, pale as something cut out of paper. Kent had just nodded, hoped that he hadn't imagined the flicker of disappointment in the other man's eye. He'd made enough of a study of the boss over the last few years that the tremor in Chandler's voice stood out like a sore thumb. It had to be hard on him, though, didn't it? They'd all been so definite that they'd got it right this time. They'd all been so _sure_.

"Yes, Sir," he said and hoped he didn't sound too nervous. "Absolutely."  
It wasn't like Chandler didn't know where to find him.

*

Home was a flat-share in Bethnal Green, just off the Old Ford road, the same flat that he   
moved into during his third year at UCL. He'd been doing an English Lit degree that had been absolutely no use at all, ever but, at the time, University had suited him and it had been a twenty minute bike ride into lectures, about the same to meet Erica outside St Martin's to go get dinner or go home for the weekend. Over the years, flatmates had rotated - people had moved, got married, gone travelling - leaving Kent as the sole original occupant. He'd managed to avoid getting stuck with vague acquaintances, friends of friends; he still _knew_ the people he lived with, still liked them, could spend time with them without it feeling like cruel and unusual torture. They were both good blokes - Sam was an accountant, Chris was a chef, both of them had nice girlfriends and always paid their rent on time. 

Kent could, at least, manage the rent on time part.

Everything was dark when he finally got home. He kicked off his shoes in the hallway and stood, for a moment, frozen with his jacket half off, caught in the crook of his elbows. Someone had left the nearly overflowing recycling box just outside the kitchen, a reminder to whoever came home first that it was being collected in the morning and, therefore, had to be taken _out_. Grumbling to himself about _sarcastic fuckers who couldn't just take the box out them-fucking-selves, Jesus_ , Kent pulled on trainers with his suit and dutifully trooped back downstairs, scattering take-away boxes and stale-smelling milk containers as he went. Outside, a fine shimmer of drizzle had started to fall, making London look sharp and somehow dangerous - like an animal with its teeth finally showing, right where everyone could see them.

Kent pulled his collar up against a sudden chill and hurried back up the stairs, kicking the door shut behind him.

*

> <3  
> TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
>  from Erica.
> 
> How're you doing? ):.

 

re: <3  
TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
from Me.

Piss off.

 

> re: re: <3  
> TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
>  from Erica.  
> I mean it - I'll come over. I'll bring wine and ice-cream. It'll be good for your ovaries.

 

re: re: re: re: <3  
TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
from Me.  
Twat.

*

Pajamas made everything better; Kent was pretty sure that that was scientific fact. He hung his suit carefully in the wardrobe, pulled on worn plaid bottoms and a Colour of Bone t-shirt that was starting to wear thin along the seams across his shoulders. He found a random episode of Top Gear on Dave and pottered around the kitchen, opening a beer and making a pot of tea at the same time, slave to his own indecision. Dinner was going to have to be last night's left-over Chinese - chicken and broccoli was fairly uninspiring after over twenty-four hours in the fridge, but he didn't have the energy for anything more complicated than three minutes in the microwave.

The beer barely touched the sides. He let the tea seep a little bit while the food warmed up. The last thing he needed was food poisoning brought on by lukewarm bloody rice. 

He'd just settled down to another episode of Clarkson and co, cup of tea on the arm of the settee, bowl cradled against his chest, when his mobile started ringing. He had, of course, left it in the pocket of his coat.

"Fuck," he said, juggling hot ceramics, managing to get both bowl and cup onto the coffee table before he dived for his coat. "Shit. _Bollocks_." Chandler's name was flashing up on the screen. Of course. "Sir?"

"Ah. Kent. I'm not disturbing you?"  
"No, Sir," said Kent, dropping back onto the sofa, phone cradled between his cheek and his shoulder as he picked his bowl back up. "Not at all. What do you need?"  
"Tonight rather got away from us, didn't it? I'm...I'm sorry that we didn't get to have that drink. All of us."

Immediately, Kent could feel his cheeks start to burn at the memory of how he'd stumbled over his words. _Would you like to go for a drink with me_? Fucking idiot. He'd spent so many days idly thinking about it that, when it had finally come down to it, he couldn't quite stop it slipping out. He'd told Mansell that he thought something was wrong with him, that other people's happiness made him feel twisted out of shape. It wasn't like he was a virgin or anything like that; there had been boyfriends (though nothing more than casual in the last couple of year. Thanks to Erica, his parents had known since he was sixteen (his other _sisters_ had known since he was fifteen). Miles knew. Mansell and Riley knew. _Ed_ probably knew, for all that Kent knew.

But then there was Chandler. And he was the problem, wasn't he? Because there was a line there that Kent couldn't seem to figure out how to cross. And he desperately, _desperately_ wished that Chandler knew everything about him.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, putting down his fork. "I think I missed that last part."  
"Oh." There was silence on the line for a moment and Kent risked taking a bite of his dinner, chewing slowly.

"Sir?"  
"It's just...I mean to...I just wanted to know." Chandler made a sound that Kent recognised as symptomatic of pure frustration. "What did you mean, exactly? When you said 'me' not 'us'. The first time, I mean. You definitely said me, and..."

Oh, God.

It was a long moment before Kent could say anything at all. Suddenly, that mouthful of broccoli seemed to have transformed into ball-bearings, impossible to swallow. He almost choked, recovered but had to have a sip of his tea before he could trust himself to speak reliably again.

"Yeah. I mean, yes, Sir. I did say me."  
"Ah," said Chandler, and Kent hoped, he _hoped_ that he wasn't imagining the fact that Chandler actually sounded sort of...pleased. "Well. In that case - tomorrow's a day off for both of us. We could...have lunch?"

After he hung up the phone, lunch duly organised, Kent stared at it dumbly for a long moment before he set it down, very carefully, on the arm of the sofa. The laughter started a moment later and it was a really, really long time before he could get himself to stop.

*

In the middle of the day, Covent Garden was thronged with tourists. Cutting across the market, Kent dodged past languages in twenty languages, mimes, groups of school kids with yellow backpacks to make it easier to keep them together. In his trainers and a hoodie, Kent more or less blended in; he'd considered a collar and tie, a jacket, but Chandler had promised him a casual lunch and Kent thought that he might as well start as he meant to go on.

The pub was tucked away down a side-street and Chandler was already waiting for him, at a table in the corner. Kent had had some experience of Chandler's idea of casual - the jumper, the crisply ironed shirt. Looking at him, Kent felt like a teenage boy. He shoved his hands into the pockets of hoodie.

"Sir."

The look on Chandler's face was entirely unreadable.

"Hullo, Kent." Kent had made a particular study of Chandler's smiles - the fake ones, the slight and sudden ones, the ones designed to mask fear or pain.

He liked the ones that touched Chandler's eyes the best.

"I'll just…" Kent gestured towards the bar.  
"Oh, yes!" said Chandler, nodding. On the table, there was a pint of bitter, virtually untouched. "I didn't know what you'd want, I'm afraid."

It sounded like the story of Kent's life.

At the bar, he waited for his pint and rehearsed a conversation in his head. It had been a bad habit of his since he was a kid - when he was anxious, he'd plan what he was about to say, try to anticipate what someone else might say in return. It was calming, somehow. It helped him to feel less in danger of falling apart.

He'd never been that good at bravado.

Back at the table, there was an agonising thirty seconds of silence - that was all Kent could stand before he snapped.

"I have to ask, Sir."

When he didn't immediately say anything, Chandler frowned.

"Yes, Kent?"

Kent's mouth was suddenly agonisingly dry. He took a swallow of his pint and looked heavenward like he was asking for some kind of divine support. In his pocket, his phone buzzed - probably Erica - but, for the moment, he ignored it.

"I just…" _God, what are you doing, what are you doing, what the_ fuck _are you doing?_ "I have to know, Sir. What are we doing here? What _exactly_ are we doing?"

"Well," says Chandler, taking a sip of his own beer. "We're having lunch, aren't we? And I think that you can stop calling me 'sir' now, don't you? We did mean to have that drink, after all. Unless...I misread your intentions?"

Oh, God.  
Well.

"No, sir."  
"Joe, Kent."  
"...No, Joe."

And there it was. Finally. At long last.  
A start, at least.

Something.

*

"I'm pregnant."

He supposed that he ought to be grateful that she didn't tell him that by email. They were lying together on his bed, on top of the covers but with their heads on one pillow, her arm thrown across his chest, possessive, fingers idly playing with the fraying hem of his t-shirt sleeve. The tangled curls of her hair smelled faintly of November, of bonfires and fireworks and chill winds coming in off the river. When they were kids, their parents had given up trying to get them to sleep in separate beds by the time they were four or five - their sisters, all five of them, fiercely fought for their own corners of the house, but Emerson and Erica had always tried desperately to crawl into each other's space, wanting nothing more than to occupy the same narrow slice of the universe.

He hadn't known how to be himself, without her right next to him.

He sighed, contriving to sound as long suffering as possible.

"It's his, then?"  
"Bastard," she said, punching him in the shoulder with a closed fist. "Of course it's his. I'm not fucking anyone else." She sniffed. "I grew out of that. And so did he, before you say anything."

Kent snorted, rolling his eyes.

"You're as bad as he is," he said. "You _deserve_ each other."  
"I'm not going to marry him," she said, after a beat. "It's old fashioned, isn't it? Expecting everyone to get married just because there's a baby involved. It's not civilised, is it? And I don't want to get married, anyway."  
"It's probably for the best. He's not very good at being married."  
"You're just saying that because you don't like him."  
"I like him. He's fine. He's...I've come around to him. If you like him, it's fine."

It wasn't quite the same thing but he wasn't entirely lying, either - he really was getting on better with Mansell. There was no point in lying to Erica, anyway. She always knew. 

She turned her head and kissed him, right on his cheekbone.

"You'll be a lovely Uncle," she said, sounding entirely certain. "A lovely, solitary Uncle in a sea of Aunts." He was used to this, the very very youngest of seven children, and all the rest of them girls. He couldn't help but smile, though, as he turned his head and pressed a kiss against her temple.

"I'm already an Uncle. Kat, Louise and Jaynie have got kids," he pointed out. "But I'll do my best for yours, too, even if they _are_ going to be half Mansell."  
"You said _they_ ," she said. "Like they'll be twins, too."  
"Might be," he said. "It'd have a nice sense of symmetry to it, right?"  
"Mmmmm."

It didn't escape his notice that Erica said _they_ too.

In that moment of silence, it hit him like a wave - how happy she was. People made a big thing out of it: the psychic link between twins, but Kent had never really thought about it, never felt like he _needed_ to give it too much thought - she'd always just been there, half in his head. When she'd had her heart broken in senior school, he'd felt it; when she'd tried acid for the first time; when she slipped on damp stairs and broke her ankle while backpacking in the Hindu Kush he'd been nearly frantic until they managed to get her on the phone. She'd known that he was gay before he'd really even figured it out for himself. He hadn't ever had to find the exact words to tell her.

Everything was always so easy where Erica was concerned. Usually, anyway. The Mansell thing had taken some getting used to.

"So tell me about him," she said, right on cue. "Your Sir."  
"Joe," he said. "I'm calling him Joe, now. Not 'Sir' - Sir's weird." He paused. "I'm supposed to be, anyway."  
"Progress! " She gave him a squeeze, her palm pressed snugly against against his ribcage. "Have you seen him naked yet? You know you think about it. I mean, fuck, Em, _I've_ thought about it."  
"Oh, God. Shut up, would you?"

With anyone else, this would be mortifying but, with her, there just wasn't any point. With her, he just gave in, right on cue. She already knew what he was thinking - what would be the point of trying to keep secrets?

He'd never wanted to. He'd never wanted to keep secrets from her.

She jabbed at him with sharp fingers.

"Come on then, Em. Spill."

So he sighed and told her. He told her about the way Chandler dressed - how he didn't really seem to understand casual clothes, how he always made Kent feel messy and awkward. Told her about the faint scent of Tiger Balm (then paused while she explained to him what, exactly, Tiger Balm _was_ ), the straight line of things on Chandler's desk, the slight rise and fall of his voice. Erica had seen Chandler in a tux, but Kent told her about the glimpse he'd caught of Chandler shirtless, in the process of changing, the beautiful lines of the muscles in his back and side.

"But you haven't seen him naked yet?"

He shook his head.

"Not yet," he said. "But I'm going to."

Emerson Kent wasn't often certain of things but he was definitely certain of that. A ball was rolling, now and he bloody well intended to follow where it led.

"Can I stay for a bit?" she said, stifling a yawn against his chest. "I really, really want a nap."  
"Won't Mansell worry?"

She shook her head.

"Finlay knows that I'm here, doesn't he?" she said, closing her eyes and snuggling a bit closer. "He knows that I'm safe with you."

And that was the truth of it, wasn't it? That they'd always been safe with each other. Because they'd tear the world apart just to make sure that that stayed true.

"Alright," he said, dropping a kiss into her wintery-scented hair.

*

It was his phone that woke him, half buried under the pillow. He didn't have to check to know that Erica was already gone; the flat felt empty around him. He fumbled his phone into his hand, scrubbing at one eye with his fist.

"Yeah?"  
"My missus still there?" Mansell sounded faintly amused.  
"No," said Kent, swallowing back an expletive. "She must have gone home."  
"Yeah, well, you're needed," said Mansell. "I've texted you the address - get down here sharpish, would you? It's a weird one."

Weren't they bloody always, these days?

*

Notting Hill was riddled with them - little mews with security gates and narrows hours with multi-million pound price tags. Bundled up in coat and scarf, Kent noticed the faces in upstairs windows, wondered how many of them were just concerned about property prices plummeting if something really horrible has happened. At the very end of the row was a property festooned in tape, with a couple of uniforms standing at the bottom of the steps. Mansell was waiting on the cobbles, stamping his feet against the cold.

"I'm supposed to be at home," he announced, as Kent walked up. "Erica's cooking."  
"Erica doesn't _cook_."

The look that Mansell gave him was almost pitying.

"Maybe not for you."

"You're literally _never_ going to stop being a dick about this, are you?" said Kent, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Congratulations, by the way."

Mansell frowned.

"About what?"

_Shit_.

Thankfully, right at that moment, Miles appeared at the top of the steps.

"What the bloody hell are you two doing dithering out here?" he snapped. "In you come, then. Quick as you like."

"That's your fault, that is," said Kent, hurrying up the steps with Mansell drifting behind him.

At the top of the steps was a long hall with a tiled floor, family photographs on the papered walls. There was something very neat about it, like they'd chosen the colour scheme out of a catalogue, got ornaments and photo-frames to fit as a job lot. At the foot of the stairs, the lights shone on blood glossy enough to be pretty recent.

He found Chandler standing in the doorway of the lounge. For a moment, he was so distracted by the breadth of Chandler's shoulders under his overcoat, the way that Chandler's hair caught the light, that he didn't even notice the chaos in the room in front of him. Held slightly out in front of him, Chandler's surgical gloves were slick with gore. Kent knew him well enough to recognise the tension in his spine. Chandler always held himself in a very certain way, but this was something else.

Kent cleared his throat to announce himself. He heard Mansell start up the stairs.

"There you are," said Chandler, stepping to one side. "What do you make of this?"  
"I...think that's a lot of blood, Sir," said Kent. Chandler glanced at him but Kent reckoned they could both recognise that now just wasn't the time for 'Joe'.  
"It is, isn't it? I don't suppose he's got much left."

The body was lying in the shadow of the settee, prone on his back. Stab wounds showed up dark and wet on a grey t-shirt. He was young, around Kent's own age, sandy hair, stubble showing up against pale, waxy skin. Kent squatted down to get a better look.

"Any idea who did it, Sir?"  
"Every idea, unfortunately. Wife was sitting slap bang in the middle of the blood when the first responder got here. Knife still in her hand." Chandler pursed his lips. "Seven months pregnant."  
"Jesus."  
"Yes."

They both stepped into the hallway to let the crime scene photographer in. Llewellyn's on his heels, huffing and puffing, one hand pressed against the swell of her pregnant belly. It felt like she'd been pregnant forever, at this point. She had to be ready to bloody pop.

"Don't tell me," she said, holding up one hand. "I've heard. Nasty business."  
"You stay here," said Chandler, looking down at his gloves, as though realising the state that they were in for the first time. "I've...got to go and clean up."

"Alright, Sir," said Kent. "You can trust me."  
Chandler just nodded, and then was gone.

"You're going to have help me up, you know," said Llewellyn, down on her knees next to the body. Kent couldn't help but notice the way that all of that blood was soaking thickly into the carpet.  
"When are you due, anyway?"  
"Any time now, actually," said Llewellyn, bending forward. "I'm working right down to the wire."  
"Just...don't, you know…do anything right now," said Kent, and he couldn't help nervously glancing towards the door.  
"I'll cross my legs just for you, Kent," said Llewellyn, rolling her eyes.

*

It was late but they got the incident room set up before anyone went home. It was going to be a pretty open and shut case, none of the usual twists and turns - the wife had done it, she wasn't pretending any different and, anyway, they'd found her still holding the knife. Literally red bloody handed.

Open and shut.

Still, Chandler was the last one in the incident room, after Miles had gone home to Julie, Riley had gone home to her kids, and Mansell, presumably, had gone home to Erica's cooking. Kent lingered, pulling on his coat.

"Joe, I…"

Chandler turned, the look on his face unreadable for a moment before he smiled.

"Ready to go?" he said, brightly enough, closing some of the distance between them. Kent found himself almost holding his breath as Chandler leaned in close enough that Kent could feel his breath against his skin.

He swallowed, nodding.

"Ready to go."

Chandler's lips just brushed the corner of Kent's. Kent's heart was throbbing in his chest.

"Come home with me, Kent," said Chandler. "Please."  
And, Jesus Christ - it was the easiest thing in the world just to nod.

-"Okay," he said.

*

Chandler drove and Kent sat in the passenger seat, head resting against the closed window. Outside, the lights swam in the dark. Some kind of classical music leaked out of the speakers. London was a mental place, a city where someone was always awake, always dancing, but they were leaving that behind, heading for somewhere darker, quieter.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to.  
It always took a while to leave a crime-scene behind.

Chandler was a pretty amazing driver, insinuating the car through traffic. Kent instinctively felt that he was safe, where he was. It was easy to relax.

"Do you want to get something to eat, first?" asked Chandler, glancing across.  
Kent shook his head.

"No...no thanks. Joe."  
He said it just to try it, really. Found that he liked the feel of it in his mouth.

*

Chandler's apartment was modern and clean, which wasn't surprising. Lots of white surfaces, black leather, tubular steel. There were barely any personal effects - no photographs, no knick-knacks, no clutter at all. No hint of personality.

It was like nobody lived there at all.

Turning off his Police brain, Kent shrugged out of his coat and scarf, found Chandler waiting to take them. Without really thinking about it, Kent undid his top button, loosened the knot in his tie.

"I want to get out of my suit," said Chandler, looking down at himself, almost as though he'd never seen it before. "I don't like staying in it once I'm home. It doesn't feel...right." Kent had been known to fall asleep in his suit, but he thought better of mentioning it.

"I don't mind."

"Help yourself to a drink, Kent. There's beer in the fridge or vodka in the freezer, if you fancy it," Chandler disappeared in the direction of what Kent could only assume was his bedroom (Oh, _God_. His bedroom. Kent tried not to think about Chandler in his bedroom, stripping methodically out of shirt and suit, hanging everything carefully, putting his shoes away. He tried not to linger on the thought of bare skin, the slip-slide of muscle.

Oh, Jesus.

Kent had never been that much of a fan of spirits so he went for a beer instead, sat down at one end of the sofa and sank back into the cushions. It couldn't have been longer than five hours ago that he woke up on his bed, but it felt like years ago. He closed his eyes, let himself drift for a moment.

"You look comfortable." 

Kent opened his eyes to find Chandler standing in the doorway from the bedroom, dressed now in loose grey pajama bottoms, a white t-shirt. Kent had never seen him look quite like that, relaxed and ruffled. For a moment, he couldn't do anything but stare and then he felt the colour rush into his cheeks and he sat forward, trying to pull his posture straighter. There was an apology, suddenly, on the tip of his tongue, but Chandler put out his hand. 

"Don't move. I didn't say I didn't like it."

A smile tugged at the corner of Kent's mouth. He watched as Chandler went into the kitchen and pulled open the freezer, poured himself a shot of vodka into a tall, narrow glass. Kent watched every, single move that he made, tried to stop noticing, tried not to get caught up in the racing throbbing of his own heart, so close to being in his throat that he could almost taste it.

"You're...going to think I'm very...forward," said Chandler. "...Like I'm rushing into things, but..." 

Right then, all Kent could think was that he sounded like something from Downton Abbey. 

"I'm not going to think anything, Sir." He winced. " _Joe_. I promise I'm not going to think anything, whatever happens."

And then Chandler leaned in and kissed him, lips chill from the vodka and November outside and Kent felt everything that he'd been thinking fall away completely. The kiss was slow, gentle; Kent was gripping the bottle between his thighs so hard that he was almost afraid that he going to shatter it. It was the biggest relief when Chandler took it off him, breaking the kiss for long enough to put both bottle and glass down on the low coffee-table, coasters already waiting. 

This time, the kiss had more heat to it, more urgency. Chandler undid another of Kent's buttons and slipped his hand inside Kent's shirt, his whole palm against Kent's skin. It felt like they were both throwing off heat, like they were going to melt into each other, if they weren't careful. Kent whimpered, the sound muffled by the press of Chandler's mouth against his. Kent raised one hand, cradling the side of Chandler's face, thumb grazing against his smooth cheek. Chandler shifted closer, crowding into Kent's space. They were both twisted at uncomfortable angles, just trying to press as close as they could to each other. 

Chandler huffed out a laugh, still so close that Kent felt it, as much as he heard it - a hot puff of breath against his skin.

"This isn't really working, is it?"  
"I don't know," said Kent, biting his lip over a sudden smile. "I've definitely had worse."  
"I just…" Chandler thought about it for a moment. "If I slow down too much, if I...think about it too much, I'll start dithering and stuttering and I'm…" He frowned, his eyeline somewhere around Kent's mouth. "I'm so far from interested in that where you're concerned."  
"I...never…" He swallowed. "I never thought."  
"Me either," said Chandler, smiling. "It's amazing, isn't it?"  
"What is?"  
"How long you can spend...stumbling around in the dark."

Chandler stood up.

"Come on," he said, holding his hand out to Kent. "Shall we?"

Kent hesitated for a split second but then he reached out, leaned up, and threaded their fingers together, letting Chandler pull him to his feet. He'd done enough hesitating, enough dithering on the edges of his own life. Erica and Mansell made him a little bit sick because they were just so effortlessly _happy_ , happy in a way that he could feel, pulsing between them with every breath in or out.

Fuck it. He was ready to be happy. He'd done enough longing. There was nothing wrong him, not really. He was ready to be bloody _wanted_.

In Chandler's bedroom, there was a wide bed made up with crisp white sheets, a flat-screened t.v, a few silver framed photographs, a tray of cufflinks on the dressing table. Kent looks around and Chandler's staring at him; he blushed, caught in the act of being nosey. Chandler didn't seem to care, though - he was already unbuttoning Kent's shirt.

"You don't wait around, do you?" said Kent, shrugging it off his shoulders, starting to unbutton his own trousers. The longer this went on, the closer they got to where he thought they were going, the braver he seemed to get. He'd spent so long dithering and now he found himself all but consumed with the desire to just...jump. Chandler's room actually helped with that - it was so clean and so uncluttered that there was really nothing in it to catch Kent's eye other than the smooth line of Chandler's collarbone as he leaned back and pulled that white t-shirt up over his head.

They pressed chest to chest, kissing with more urgency. Kent's hands dipped lower, following the line of Chandler's sides, slipping around to his arse and squeezing, pulling their hips snug together. This was the part that Kent knew well, knew like the back of his hand. He'd never had trouble getting laid, not really - Erica always said he was too nice not too. It was the relationships that he found difficult; somewhere around the two month mark, the questions always started and they never really stopped, after that.

But with Chandler, there wasn't one thought in his head. Everything was clean and white and focused on the now, now, now. Now, he eased Chandler's trousers down around his hips, felt giddy and joyful to find him already without underwear. Kent felt brave and resilient and alive as he kissed Chandler, as he curled his fingers around Chandler's cock and stroked, slowly. There was a definite gratification in watching the way Chandler's face changed, the way fair eyelashes fluttered and his teeth touched his lip.

"You've done this before."

Kent grinned, leaning in and pressing a trio of light kisses against the hollow of Chandler's throat.

"Now and again."  
"I don't want to...I can't…" Chandler frowned, though he didn't open his eyes. "I need to work up to it."

Kent nodded, lips still against Chandler's pulse. He got it. He didn't care. Now that he was started, he'd take anything he could get.

"It's okay," he said, giving Chandler a little squeeze, feeling the way his hips jerked. "There's no rush, right? Have you got condoms, though?"

Of course he had. In a little box, in his bedside table, right there with lube and one of those little packets of Kleenex tissues. If Kent's cock hadn't been so hard that it was aching, he might actually have that that it was sweet.

They fumbled out of the rest of their clothes. Kent found himself making a mental note of exactly what Chandler looked like naked, so that he could tell Erica later. Some of it, anyway. Not all of it.

There are some things about this that he wouldn't ever tell Erica. Like, for example, the fact that Chandler didn't look quite so tall lying down; that Chandler was beautiful when he blushed, and that that blush spread down his chest and to his cock; that his cock itself was beautiful, like the rest of him was beautiful; that the sight of him lying naked and waiting made Kent's heart beat just noticeably faster.

That Chandler had a particular smile, soft and sweet, that Kent had never quite seen before.

"Come on," said Chandler. "Come here."

Kent took his time. He slipped out of his trousers, was just as naked as Chandler by the time he crawled onto the bed, a condom between his teeth. He leaned over, kissed the soft, yielding skin of Chandler's belly, brushed his lips against the length of Chandler's cock before he lifted his head to roll the condom down over him. It introduced a measure of cleanliness. A measure of control.

"Tell me what you want," he said, pressing his body against the length of Chandler's side, his cock pressed against Chandler's hip. "Tell me what...I need to know how far I can go."

"I want you," said Chandler, turning his head for a kiss; he sounded sure of that much, at least. "Just...not quite all of it? Not yet."

Kent nodded. He could work with that.

As they kissed, he curled his fingers around Chandler's cock, rolled his wrist and tightened his fingers to give him a smooth, practised tug. He found a rhythm, stroking, squeezing gently as they kissed, swallowing all of Chandler's little moans and whimpers, feeling the other man let go and come undone, one kiss at a time. Kent methodically ignored the throbbing in his own cock, the ache in his balls and the gnawing empty hungry feeling in the very pit of his stomach, in his guts. Want. Pure want.

But he could wait. He'd been waiting, hadn't he?

Chandler came, a little quicker than Kent had expected, gasping and groaning, trying to swallow those sounds back even though they were completely alone. Kent worked him through it, as long as he could manage it and then he took his hand away, squirming down the bed, up on his knees to keep his cock away from the sheets, the friction that he wasn't sure that he could stand. He peeled the condom off and knotted it with a snap of rubber that was somehow satisfying, dropped it (for the moment) in the bedside bin. When he'd done that, he bent his head and slid his mouth down over the length of Chandler's softening cock, just for a second, just to taste the echo of his orgasm, just to revel in the fact that he was the one who'd done it, just him, just like that. 

"Oh, God, Kent," said Chandler, one hand draped over his eyes. "Jesus. I need to...We've got to…" He rolled towards Kent and it occurred Kent that he hadn't put a condom on himself, and maybe that was a mistake, but then Chandler was pushing him back against the sheets, pinning him with hands on his hips as he kissed lower, following the line of Kent's sternum, then down over his belly and the fine trail of hair that Kent had had since his teens. He realised what was about to happen and he pressed both hands over his face, feeling like he was about to explode into a spangle of stars.

"Please," he whimpered. He was pretty sure that he said 'please'.

From the way that Chandler's mouth slid down over Kent's cock, one inch at a time, it was obvious that this wasn't his first time giving head. He took his time, swallowed Kent's cock as deep as he could, fingers curled loosely around the last few inches of his cock. Arching his back against the mattress, Kent eased the fingers of his left hand into Chandler's fair hair, cradling the back of Chandler's head, not exerting any pressure. Chandler seemed to know exactly the pace he wanted to set, slow but definite. There was no way, absolutely _no_ that Kent was going to last very long. But he was pretty sure that Chandler wouldn't judge him. Almost sure. Maybe. 

Kent mumbled, moaned, was almost entirely sure that he'd said Chandler's name.  
Joe. Jesus fucking Christ, _Joe_.

"I'm going to… _fuck_...I can't…"  
It was all the warning that he could manage and Chandler didn't seem to be going anywhere. Kent tried to be considerate, tried to pull away but Chandler stayed resolutely where he was. Kent lifted his head so that he could look, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was that pushed him over the edge - whether it was Chandler's fair hair tumbled forward over his forehead, or the bob of his head, the width of his shoulders or the bare line of him down his side and his thigh.

Kent came so hard that he saw white against the inside of his eyelids, managed to open his eyes in time to see Chandler shielding his mouth as he spat into the water glass at the side of the bed.

"I have to…" He nodded towards the en-suite. "You're going to stay?"  
Kent barely had time to nod before Chandler was out of the bed, taking the glass and the condom (held gingerly between forefinger and thumb) with him. Rationally, Kent knew that it was nothing that he'd done; he'd worked with Chandler for long enough to know that there was a ritual of cleanliness to follow. The incident room wasn't a place to keep secrets. Miles wouldn't know what the word _discreet_ meant if he looked it up in a dictionary.

So Kent knew that it was nothing to do with him, but stupidly, inexplicably, he still felt tears stinging in the corners of his eyes. 

He knew it was stupid.  
It didn't matter. He did it anyway.

*

> FUCK  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtsotobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from Me.
> 
> Overslept. No time to go home and change. Argh.

 

re: FUCK  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

Commando it is then sweetheart :D.

 

…………………………...WAIT. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!

 

*

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, Emerson Kent still had a little cry in corridors or car parks. Standing on the edge of the crime-scene, tucked into the corner next to the frozen peas, Kent felt that very familiar urge, prickling link needles in the corners of his eyes. It was ridiculous - he wasn't even bloody _sad_. Overwhelmed, though - he was wholly overwhelmed, like everything in the whole world had suddenly, subtly changed shape over night. It wasn't a _bad_ thing, but he just didn't get it anymore. But then Chandler turned and caught his eye and Kent felt something weighty slip back into place. He bit back a little smile of his own.

"Well, this escalated bloody quickly, didn't it?" said Miles, sour and grey, out of place in a supermarket in the too-early morning. Kent himself felt stretched, too-tired, hoping that nobody noticed that he was wearing the same shirt and tie as yesterday. No pants. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one leg to another. "Not what you're expectin' when you nip in to buy your bloody sandwich on the way to the office, is it?"

Kent though there was actually more blood than before. Llewellyn knelt on the very edge of it, her knees almost in the crimson spill of it, head bent over the body that had bled out like a lake on the grey tiled floor.

"Murder weapon was jagged. Used to rip the throat like so." She mimed the action with a clenched fist. "A bottle, I'd say. Smashed."  
"Well, we know that part, at least," said Chandler, crouched down too, but well back from the scarlet spill on the floor, making sure that his shoes were nowhere near all of the gore. "We found the wife in the Christmas aisle, sitting there with the bottle still in her hand." A flicker of something like discomfort crossed his face. "No response from her yet. They've taken her to the hospital but…" He touched the back of his neck, a little tell-tale sign. "It's not looking good."

"This one was pregnant too," said Kent.

At his side, Miles sighed, rubbed one hand over his face.

"See if I figure out that that bitch had anything to do with this one too, I'll…"

Kent winced. They tried not to talk about Louise Iver. Firstly, it made Chandler uncomfortable and, secondly, it was just...bloody ridiculous, wasn't it? Kent's Aunt (there was a touch of Romany or something, on his mom's side - he'd never really figured it out), claimed that she was psychic and Kent had worked hard not to believe in that, even if Erica had always loved having her tea-leaves read. He wasn't about to believe that the devil was _actually_ walking about in Whitechapel, wasn't going to get sucked into believing that they were cursed or worse.

He was a policeman. That was enough. There was still so much to bloody _notice_.

Mostly, though, he was noticing Chandler - the way he straightened his tie, shrugged his shoulders, smoothed his hair as he thought. His mouth. Kent found himself completely and utterly distracted by Chandler's mouth, and the memory of what it could do, and the thought of what the context of that memory might mean.

"Oi!"

Kent startled, realised that Miles had been talking to him, probably, and he'd missed every single word.

"Sorry, Sarge," he said. "Didn't...I missed that."  
"I said _back to the station_ , Kent," said Miles, annunciating each word almost the point of spitting them out. "Let's do our jobs, shall we? Try and look like proper, competent coppers for a change."

"Do our best, sarge," said Kent, risking a smile.

*

"Pregnant women, I guess?" he said, sitting at the spare desk in Ed's archive, sipping tea that wasn't sweet enough because Mansell made it. Kent wrinkled his nose but drank it anyway. "Crimes involving pregnant women?"

"As victims or perpetrators?" asked Buchan, already rummaging through his files. "Devil's in the details, as they say."

Kent really, _really_ wished he'd chosen another turn of bloody phrase.

"Perpetrators," he said, taking another sip of his tea before he gave it up as a lost cause. "Both killers so far have been pregnant women."

"Have we considered the possibility of...errant hormones? I believe that that can be something of a constant threat."

Kent couldn't help but think about Erica - she'd always been unpredictable at the best of times. God knows what he'd have to put up with now that she was pregnant; he didn't know if he was more worried for himself or Mansell.

He pulled a face.

"Think the boss is going to need something a bit more concrete than 'weird hormones', Ed," he said, pushing himself up out of the chair. "Just have a look for us, okay?"

He knew that he wasn't the only one thinking that two of these was probably enough.

Up in the incident room, everything was quiet and still. Mansell had already gone home to Erica; Miles had gone home to Julie and his kids. Same with Riley. Most of the light was coming spilling out of Chandler's office. He was framed by the door, sitting at the desk with his coat already on, hands folded neatly on his desk, like he could line his bones up as easily as he lined up pen or watch. His eyes were closed but, when Kent stepped into the doorway, he smiled.

"There you are, Kent," he said. "I...was wondering if you wanted a lift?"

Kent nodded. 

"Yeah. Yes. A lift'd be nice." He lifted his head, smiled. "You...could call me 'Em', you know. If you wanted. That'd be okay."

"Em," said Chandler, like he was trying it on for size. He smiled - that sudden smile that always made Kent want to picture what he must have looked like as a tiny child, as a small boy before the weight of everything settled him. Kent himself has always been a little bit quiet, a little bit shy, but he would have put money on the fact that, once, Joe Chandler shone.

*

"Just don't look at it," said Kent, for about the hundredth time, as he reached the top of the stairs, key in hand. Chandler paused, looking around the narrow stairwell like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. Kent did a quick mental walk-through of the flat: Sam had cleaned the bathroom a couple of days ago, Chris usually wiped the kitchen down after cooking and Kent himself had remembered to take the bin out that morning.

How bad could it be?

The hall looked dim and cramp into the light from the stairs; Kent had been meaning to get rid of that bike since before he'd brought his vespa. He shrugged out of his coat and held his hand out for Chandler's so that he could hang them both on the stand next to the front door. 

"Kitchen's at the end of the corridor," he said, pulling the knot loose in his tie. "Living room's on the right. Bedroom's on the left. Sorry it's not warmer - I'll...stick the heating on."

"It's alright, Kent," said Chandler, walking down the corridor, pausing to look at the crowded pin board, the collection of bills and ticket stubs and photographs of University nights out. At the end of the hall he paused and Kent found himself holding his breath, even if it didn't really matter which way Chandler went, if he went left or right.

But he went left - opened the door of Kent's bedroom and stepped inside.

At eighteen, Emerson Kent had moved from home to University halls, into this flat a year later. Over ten years of living in the flat had let a lot of stuff accumulate - a lot of history. Kent stood in the doorway with his shoulder leaned against the frame, watching as Chandler moved around his room. There was a bookshelf crammed with battered paperbacks, science fiction and fantasy (most of them read for the first time in senior school and then dragged around with him since). Framed photographs decorated bookshelves. Kent smiled, watching as Chandler bent slightly to study a slightly faded photograph in a mosaic frame: Kent and Erica as toddlers, dressed in matching t-shirts with mops of curly dark hair.

"This is you," said Chandler, a little note of wonder in his voice. "You haven't changed that much, have you?"

Kent shook his head.

"Neither of us have."

Erica had gotten into the habit of giving him photo frames as part of his present for Christmas and birthdays; it made sense to use them and it stopped her complaining. Anyway, he liked having the photographs around - he didn't get home nearly as much as he should.

Chandler grimaced as his hand came away dusty from a shelf. Kent offered him a clean towel from a basket of clean washing.

"Sorry about that," he said, cheeks flushing. "If I'd known you'd be driving me home, I'd have...I'd have done something about it."

"No, no," said Chandler, shaking his head, as polite as ever. "It's your space, Kent." He winced slightly. " _Em_. I just…" He shrugged. "I am what I am, at this point."

Kent nodded, and reached out, curling his fingers against the back of Chandler's neck to pull him down for a soft, sweet kiss. He wondered when he got so brave.

"Why don't you go and make yourself comfortable in the lounge or something?" he murmured, still so close that his lips brushed against Chandler's as they moved, forming words. "I'm just...going to do some stuff in here. I'll be right out."

_Stuff_ , as it turned out, included, changing the sheets on the bed, quickly wiping down bedside table (taking the opportunity to make sure that there was enough lube and condoms), stripping out of shirt and tie, hanging things up, putting on pyjamas. 

He didn't intend to be wearing the pyjamas for that long.

"Do you want anything? Beer? Tea?"

He found Chandler sitting in the lounge, jacket folded neatly over the back of the armchair, tie already off, head tipped back against the sofa, eyes closed. He didn't open his eyes when Kent spoke, but he did smile.

"No, thank you," he said. "I'm ridiculously comfortable, as it happens."  
"Oh," said Kent, one knee hitting the sofa before he swung the other across Chandler's lap, settling his weight across Chandler's thighs. "Sorry for disturbing you, then."

Before all of this, Kent had thought that he knew exactly how blue Chandler's eyes were. As it turned out, he'd had a good idea, but he'd really had no _idea_ , not until he sat there, intensely aware of his stiffening cock, with Chandler sharing straight at him.

"I...uh...changed the sheets," he said, biting his lip over a smile. "I thought you might want to stay."

Chandler grinned, a definite flush in his cheeks, one hand slipping between them to cup Kent's cock, thumb tracing along the hardening length of him. Kent dragged in a breath through his nose, letting his eyes drift close.

"Well," said Chandler, "If you changed the sheets, it'd be rude not too, wouldn't it?"

They kissed like that for a couple of minutes, Kent sitting in Chandler's lap and rocking his hips forward, pressing himself against Chandler, whimpering and moaning between kisses, between the press of Chandler's tongue and little gasps for breath.

"Jesus, can we…"

Kent swallowed hard, nodding frantically.

"Come on," he said, getting up off the sofa, feeling like a teenager with tented pyjama bottoms, spit-damp lips. He held out his hands to Chandler. "Come to bed."

They were fumbling out of clothes before they even got back to Kent's bedroom. Every time Kent managed to get another button on Chandler's shirt open, he pressed another kiss against smooth, bare skin. They didn't linger over stripping - there were other things to worry about. Naked, Chandler lay down on the bed, on his back and Kent crawled across him. He pressed kisses against Chandler's skin, lips brushing against one nipple. He paused, teasing it with the tip of his tongue.

"I want you to fuck me," he said, eyes closed, forehead resting against Chandler's skin. With the position he was in, it was easy to shift his hips, his cock sliding against Chandler's in the tight space between their bodies. "Could you..? Would you fuck me? Please."

Chandler nodded. That hesitation from before was gone; he looked like he'd entirely made up his mind.

"How?"  
"Is this your first time?" asked Kent, leaning across him for lube and a condom. He realised how that question sounded and winced. "Not ever. I don't mean ever. Your first time with...you know...a man?" He straightened up for a moment, opening the condom. "I don't mind if it is - I'm pretty much the opposite of minding."

Chandler huffed a laugh and shook his head, fingers squeezing Kent's thigh.

"Relax, Em. It's not my first time at anything. Just...wanted to know how you wanted it, I suppose."

"Oh!" Kent dragged in a breath and felt himself relax a little. He nodded, shifted, starting to roll the condom down over Chandler's cock, loving the way his breath caught a little at the friction. "Like this, then. I…" He glanced down, blushing. "I want to watch your face."

Chandler nodded.

"I'd like that."

Chandler reached for the lube and Kent shifted on his knees, leaning forward, one hand wrapping around the bed-frame. 

"It won't take much," he said and then watched the reality of that dawn on Chandler's face. "It's nothing serious. Just sex."

Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, he decided to take a leaf out of Erica's book and stop _worrying_ about everything.

It never lasted, but it felt _bloody_ good while it did.

He knew it was coming but, when Chandler's slick fingers brushed against him, his hips still started forward. Chandler's other hand came to rest on his hip, squeezing slightly, holding Kent steady as Chandler started to press one finger into him. fucking him slowly. Kent nodded, starting to roll his hips, pressing back against Chandler's hand.

"Quicker," he said. "I can take it."  
It was a cliche but he wasn't sure that he'd ever wanted anything so much in his life.

Chandler clearly wasn't lying when he said that he'd done this before; the way he used his fingers was spare and practiced, working towards a point that they both knew was coming sooner rather than later - the moment when Kent nodded almost frantically, his hips squirming backwards against the press of Chandler's fingers inside him.

"Ready," he mumbled. "Jesus, I'm so ready."

Nodding, Chandler shifted, wrapping his fingers around his cock to hold it steady as Kent rose up onto his knees, getting the angle right before he started to slide down again. Chandler's cock slid into him one inch at a time and, even when he'd dreamed about it, Kent had never, ever imagined that it could feel quite _that_ good. He knew that he could be a shambles, that he didn't always give the impression of being completely in control of himself. But he'd done this before, often enough to really know what he liked, to really know what was _good_. He'd never had any trouble finding someone to go to bed with, someone to fuck; it was relationships that had always made him stumble. It was Chandler who made him feel like a stuttering kid again.

"What?" asked Chandler, frowning, his hands tight on Kent's hips. "Is it...Am I…"

Kent just shook his head. He stayed where he was for a moment, not so much adjusting as just revelling in the fact that he was finally here, _finally_ , what felt like years and years after he'd handed Chandler that piece of bloody chalk.

He didn't believe in love at first sight, not really, but he did know that, after the first time he'd set eyes on Joe Chandler, there was literally nobody else.

It was Kent who set the pace, rising up onto his knees, sinking back down. He kept his hands wrapped around the bedroom, closed his eyes because he didn't know if he could keep looking at Chandler while they did this. He honestly didn't know whether his heart could take it.

"You could touch me," he said, barely getting the words out, losing them at the end in a moan. "If you...if you wanted."

Chandler didn't need to be told twice. He curled his fingers around Kent's cock and started stroking, gently, his grip firm. Kent risked a look at him and saw him smiling, eyelashes fluttering, teeth touching his lip. Fair hair rumpled against the pillow. 

Kent had never been in love before, so he had no idea if it was _supposed_ to feel like.

He gritted his teeth, his grip on the bed-frame tightening until his knuckles were white. He was determined to hold on, determined to see Chandler come before he came himself, not sure that he'd have a braincell left after he did. He opened his eyes, looked down at Chandler beneath him. Neither of them spoke but they held the eye-contact and, when a smile tugged at the corner of Chandler's mouth right before his eyelashes fluttered, his head falling back. Kent moved one hand, pressed it against Chandler's chest, skimming up against the throbbing pulse in Chandler's throat, stroking his thumb against Chandler's collarbone until he felt him come, watched the way his face changed, the way he spasmed and shook, and then settled, dragging in breaths that made his chest all but heave.

Then, it felt okay for Kent to let go himself. Then, he felt like he could let go completely.

He actually cried out as he came, some unintelligible babble shot through with the single syllable of Chandler's name. _Jesus Christ, Joe_.

Opening his eyes, Kent barely registered the mess across Chandler's tan skin before he became aware of the insistent press of Chandler's hands on his thighs, the way the look on his face had changed.

"That...was wonderful," he said, and Kent watched him swallow. "But I need to shower, please. Right now."

Kent nodded, already shifting to the side, feeling that sudden moment of inexplicable loss when Chandler's cock slipped out of him, left him with the memory of being as full as he had been moments before.

"Can I come?"

He hadn't even meant to ask that question, but then it was out in the world and he just had to wait for an answer, blushing. Chandler got to his feet, grabbing for the sheet and wrapping it around himself, clearly resisting the urge to scrub at the come that was drying on his skin.

"Of course," he said, and, despite the slightly frantic look in his eyes, smiled.

Kent bent, grabbing for a pair of pants - just in case someone as home - and he heard Chandler draw in a sudden breath.

"God, Em. Your scars."

Kent shook his head, getting a bright smile onto his face because he felt like he could withstand a lot of things, but if he thought about how ugly those scars were and how, exactly, they got there, then he honestly thought he might cry.

"Don't."  
"Alright," said Chandler. "Uh…"

"Come on," said Kent, reaching out to grab Chandler's hand.

The bathroom was pretty close to spotless (thank God - he'd buy Sam a pint the last time they went out). Kent turned the shower on and waited for Chandler to get under the water before he slipped out of his pants and stepped in behind him.

"You can use anything you want," he said, pressing himself against Chandler's back, kissing his shoulder. "But this one's mine."

Chandler glanced back, smiling, and Kent stood there, hands resting lightly on Chandler's hips as he showered, as he washed carefully and methodically. Kent had watched Chandler wash his hands before, methodical but a touch frantic; this was pretty much the same process, so Kent just stood there, feeling boneless, tired but whole, watching while it happened.

"Better?" he murmured, once Chandler's hands had stopped moving and they were both just standing there, under the full force of the hot water. Chandler nodded.

"Much," he said. "We can go to bed now, if you like."  
"You want to stay?"  
"I'll have to go home to change before I go to the station but...yes," said Chandler, and Kent could hear his smile in his voice, even if he couldn't see it. "Yes, I'd like to stay."

The water felt so good. It was hard to take the step out of the shower, reaching for a towel, drying Chandler off before he started on himself.

"I am sorry about this," said Chandler, his back still to Kent, standing there naked and lovely, water still beaded on skin. "About...all of this. I don't mean to be...such a bloody trial."

Kent thought about that for a moment, the towel still in his hands, pressed against the muscle of Chandler's back.

"Let's go to bed," he said.

They ended up close together in the middle of Kent's newly changed bed. After some shifting around, a little hesitation, Kent had settled, somewhat tentatively, with his head against Chandler's shoulder, his arm thrown across Chandler's waist, the inside of his wrist pressed against bare skin. Chandler's cheek rested against Kent's still-damp hair.

"How long have you been like this?" he asked.  
"I couldn't go to my father's memorial service because I was so concerned with washing my hands. I was ten," said Chandler and then he paused, chewing the inside of his lip. "It seemed to get steadily worse while I was at school - no coping mechanisms, you know? I'd be in the middle of a rugby match and then sudden find myself obsessed with the mud under my fingernails. I used to scrub my hands until they bled."

"Didn't your mum ever say anything?"

"I'm honestly not sure she ever noticed."

That thought was so alien to Kent. He'd grown up in the middle of all of this, all of this love, his sisters, his mum (firmly in charge), his dad (mostly bewildered). Every so often, an aunt would descend and throw them all into chaos. Sometimes, it had felt like a tornado, like all of the women in his life weren't people, not just people, but storms contained by skin. He had never ever once doubted that he was loved.

"But you got better? It must have."

Chandler shook his head.

"I got better at dealing with it. Some of the time. I drink a lot more than I ought to - I'm sure you've noticed." It had been particularly apparent during that whole mess with the Krays; Kent remembered Chandler apologising to him, that glass of vodka in his hand. "I wash my hands a lot. Order helps - being able to keep little things in order." His hand came to rest on Kent's shoulder, fingers idly stroking against Kent's skin. "You help, a bit. These last few days...it's been...quieter in my head when you're about. I'm not saying it's a miracle or anything. It's definitely not a cure. But…" He paused, and Kent imagined that he was smiling. "I'll take what I can get, frankly. I just hope it doesn't get to be too much."

"It's not going to be too much." He could at least be completely certain of that. "I...I've been thinking about this since the first day I met you."

Chandler lifted his head, smiling, eyebrows raised.

"Really?"  
"Really, really. Ask the Sarge."  
"Miles knew?"

Kent sighed theatrically, nodding, cheek against Chandler's skin.

"Miles knows everything. Doesn't miss anything."  
"He actually pointed your sister out to me, once," said Chandler. "At Ed's opening. For a split second, I honestly thought he was pointing at you."

That made Kent laugh. He shifted, putting his head against the pillow so that he can actually _look_ at Chandler.

"Well, I'm glad we figured it out in the end," he said. Chandler nodded, leaning in to take a kiss, his hand skimming along the line of Kent's side.

"Me too."

They kissed for a moment, slow and sated, warm and tangled in the sheets. Kent had to remind himself not to grip Chandler's arm too tightly. Nothing was going to happen. Already, it had a feeling of permanence to it.

Some things, he reasoned, made perfect sense, no matter what other ideas that Universe had.

"Can I see them?"

It took Kent a moment to figure out what Chandler was asking about. He turned his face into the pillow.

"Do you have to?"

Chandler's fingers brushed between Kent's shoulderblades, stroking gently. Kent was intensely aware of the drape of the sheet across his hips.

"I'd like to. There isn't…" His fingers traced up and down Kent's spine. "There isn't anything I don't want to know, Em."

Kent supposed that it was a police thing, really. Hard to stop noticing. Hard to stop wanting to know.

He nodded.

"Alright. Go on."

He lay as still as he could as Chandler sat up, pressed a kiss against his shoulder and then moved lower. He lifted the sheet, pushing it down and Kent felt cool air on bare skin. He screwed his eyes shut and bit his lip as Chandler touched the scars gently. 

The Kray boys had made a mess of him; Kent knew that.  
He knew what it looked like.

"Still there?"  
"Still here," said Chandler, pressing his whole palm against the scars and then pulling the sheet back up, settling it into place.  
"What do you think?"

He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to know. The scars were ugly. He knew that. He always did his best to hide them. But there wasn't going to be any opportunity to hide from Chandler, was there? Chandler settled down next to him. Kent rolled onto his side so that Chandler could press against his back.

"I think you're beautiful," Chandler murmured, mouth close to Kent's ear. "I don't see how scars could change that."

Kent pressed his nose into the pillow, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry.

A little while later, dimly, he heard Chris come in from work. Chandler was warm and comfortable and right there in the dark.

*

> Dinner  
> TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
>  from Erica.
> 
> Come and get your dinner tonight. I want all the gory, lovely details.
> 
> You know you're dying to tell me.

*

Mansell and Erica hadn't even lived together for very long, but, from the moment Kent stepped through the front door, all he could see was his sister. She was there in the cushions of the sofa, the books on the coffee table, the framed pictures on every flat service. Her boots were lined up in the hallway, her battered biker jacket hung up on the end of the bannister. Kent paused, for a moment, his hand on the scarred, tattered leather and remembered how pleased she'd been when she found it in a charity shop when they were sixteen. Written on the lining, she'd found letters in Tippex: _FUCK EVERYTHING. LIVE FOREVER._ She'd been trying to live like that ever since, as far as he could tell. God, he'd always wished he was as brave as her.

But maybe he was learning.

"Alright, Kent!" said Mansell, returning to a seat in front of the T.V, a football match already playing. "Beer in the fridge, Missus in the kitchen. You need anything?"  
"No," said Kent, shaking his head, managing a smile. "I'm just...going to talk to Erica for a bit, okay?"

Mansell had already gone back to his game. Kent couldn't even tell who was playing.

He found Erica sitting in the kitchen, pots bubbling away on the stove, feet up on one of the mismatched chairs as she drew. She'd mostly done photography and sculpture since she left college; it wasn't very often that he saw her just _drawing_ anymore. She was wearing a t-shirt that she'd had since she was a kid, the Clash logo faded and cracked. He wondered how much longer she was going to be able to wear it - whether it would fit when she had a bump to think about. She looked beautiful and relaxed in a way that he'd never seen her look before, sitting in her own kitchen, pregnant by a man she (apparently) loved.

He felt the tiniest, briefest flicker of jealousy, but it was gone before it even had a chance to start.

"You're late," she said, without looking up from her sketchpad. She'd been drawing a tangle of figures, reaching arms and screaming mouths; knotted, ragged hair. The page made him uncomfortable and he found himself staring at it a moment or two too long before he started to shrug out of his hoodie.

"I got held up at the station," he said. "And then I had to go home and get changed." He bent down, grabbing a beer out of the fridge. "And here I fucking am."

"I've been waiting to hear the details all day," she said. "Did you fuck him?"  
"Shhhh, Erica! Jesus." Kent's eyes darted to the open door. "If Mansell hears, I'll never fucking live it down."  
"Finlay? He knows you're going out. He's a copper, too, Em - he's not stupid."  
"Yeah, well." He took a sip of a beer. "That doesn't mean he needs to know everything, does it? I don't ask _you_ what fucking _him_ is like, do I?"  
"Just because you channel your natural curiosity into all the wrong things," she said, smirking.  
"I am not giving you the details of my sex-life, Erica. It's _weird_."  
"You wouldn't have said that when we were eighteen." She sniffed. "I don't know when you turned into such a prude, Em. When did we start keeping secrets from each other?"  
"It wasn't like we did anything _weird_. Jesus. We had sex and then we went to sleep and he was gone when I woke up this morning."  
"Well, that's romantic."  
"He had to go home and shower. Stop being such a dick."  
"Yeah, yeah. You've got dick on the brain. I know."  
"What the fuck are you two hissing about?"

Mansell was standing in the doorway, an empty beer bottle in his hand. Kent felt his cheeks go reflexively, immediately red. Erica got up out of her chair, ruffling Kent's hair and kissing his forehead. He swatted at her, pretty ineffectually but, in the end, wrapped his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. He'd never been able to stay pissed off with her for long - those couple of weeks when she'd first started going out with Mansell had been the longest that they'd gone without speaking their whole lives.

"Em was just telling me absolutely nothing about his boyfriend."

"Jesus, Erica," he mumbled, sinking down in his chair, covering his eyes with one hand.  
"Nah, Kent," said Mansell, grabbing another beer, setting another one down for Kent by his elbow. "Long as I don't actually have to hear any bloody details, I'm made up for you. Really. You two miserable bastards deserve each other."

Kent rolled his eyes but found himself smiling despite himself.

"Bastard."

Dinner was a curry that proved, pretty conclusively, that Erica could cook. The new knowledge was baffling, like waking up and suddenly realising that he'd got another limb, sometime in the night. He wasn't used to learning new things about Erica. But he didn't entirely hate it. Mansell was different around Erica, too. Somehow softer. He smiled more, made less shitty, mean jokes.

Kent found that he didn't hate that, either.

He was elbow deep in the dishes when his mobile started ringing. Erica fished it out of his pocket and answered it.

"Em's phone. Oh - DCI Chandler. Joe. Yeah, he's right here - hang on." She held the phone up to his ear.

"Kent, is that you?"

Chandler wasn't on his own then, not if he was still calling him 'Kent'.

"Yes, J…" He glanced at Mansell. "Yes, boss?"  
"We've got a crime-scene. I'm going to need you and Mansell." He paused. "Sorry to interrupt your dinner."  
"It's no problem. Text me the address - we'll both be there."  
"I actually need you at the hospital. The victim's not dead. Get Mansell to go the crime-scene, and I'll meet you at A and E."  
"See you then."

Wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans, he turned to Mansell to find him already pulling on his coat.

"You got that then?"

Mansell nodded and then he leaned in to kiss Erica, once, briefly.

"Sorry, babe," he said. "Back as soon as I can."

Kent leaned and took his own kiss.

"Dinner was amazing."  
"I love your face," she said. "Even when you won't tell me anything. Dickhead."

*

Kent hated hospitals. He'd _always_ hated them - the vaguely antiseptic smell, the beige curtains, the vague undercurrent of shit and blood. He'd never been able to relax, even when he'd been there visiting his sisters after they had their kids, even when he'd been sitting there on wards or in the odd private room, holding nieces or nephews in his arms.

The thing about hospitals was that, every single time he walked into one, he didn't entirely expect to make it out.

"What do you think that smell is?" he said, rubbing the end of his nose as he trailed up the stairs after Chandler, looking around him. Next to Chandler, he felt massively under-dressed, in his jeans and his hoodie, a t-shirt that he and Erica had shared up until the day he packed it to take it to University when he was eighteen.

"Just a hospital smell, I think," said Chandler, sounding vague. Kent was used to him sounding half-gone when he was in the middle of the case; he'd given up trying to go where he couldn't follow.

"I hate it."

He hadn't spent as long in hospital as he should have, after the Kray twins cut him up (and sometimes, still, it killed him, not knowing which one of them it was who'd breathed into his ear). He'd managed to get them to let him go home, back to his mum's house where he'd been fed soup and fussed over, watched an awful lot of romantic comedies, more than his fair share of soaps, and painted model trains with his dad.

He just hated hospitals.  
He didn't think he was being unreasonable, either.

Chandler didn't say much, but he did reach out and squeeze Kent's fingers, gently, in the shadow of the stairway.

*

The victim (Kent hated - _hated_ \- that word) was lying prone in a bed, his skin the deathly milk-pale of someone who'd recently lost more blood than they could really afford. He was young, probably not much older than Kent was himself, with blond hair gone lank with sweat across his forehead. There were dark, purplish shadows under his eyes.

When Kent had wound up in hospital it had been weird and humiliating and painful, but he was pretty sure that he'd never looked quite that close to death.

"He can't talk much," said a nurse, male, arms crossed across a navy blue tunic. "He's lost a lot of blood, he's in shock, he needs to rest."

Chandler nodded and Kent _thought_ he might have imagined it, but was that a flicker of a smile? He felt himself bristle, shoved his hands into the pocket of his hoodie instead.

"We won't be long, I promise," he said, all affability and easy, posh charm. Kent envied that. He'd never managed to make anything like that graceful. At the foot of the bed, they separated, Kent going tone side, Chandler going to the other. They both sat down. Kent fidgeted in the narrow, uncomfortable chair; he'd ended up with plastic while Chandler perched on the edge of the threadbare armchair.

"Can I have some water?"

His voice came out in a raw croak. It was Chandler who reached for the plastic cup, found the straw and steadied it while the man sipped. Alway surprising - these little flickers of tenderness from Chandler. Less and less surprising, though. Kent was getting used to them.

When he'd finished drinking, the man lay back against the pillows, eyes closed. The bed was in a side-room, and the man's name was written on the door. Ryan. His name was Ryan. Kent felt better, once he'd got a name in his head - anything was better than _victim_.

"Can you remember anything?" said Chandler, which was Kent's cue to dig out his notebook and a biro and start taking notes. Chandler didn't say anything, but he noticed.

Ryan shook his head.

"I…" He swallowed. It looked painful. "I don't even know what happened. One minute we were…" Another cough, and Kent's eyes were drawn to the blood stained gauze taped across his belly, "Watching...X Factor, and the next…" He mimed slicing with the side of his hand. "I don't even know where the knife came from. She…" He frowned. "Only went in the kitchen to get a cup of tea."

"When's the baby due?" asked Kent.  
"Next week."  
"Did you…" Chandler frowned as he waited for the question to coalesce. "Was anything different about her? Did anything change?"

Ryan shook his head. Kent couldn't help but notice that his eyes were drifting closed. He glanced at his watch - after ten. Dinner felt like it had been a hundred years ago.

"Nothing," said Ryan. "It was like she was there one minute and the next minute." He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Gone."

"That's enough," said the nurse.

"Gone," said Chandler out in the corridor. "What do you suppose he meant by that, Em?"  
"He'll probably be able to give us more when he's more with it?"  
"Probably."

They paused in the doorway, the carpark dark and quiet ahead of them.

"So," said Chandler, and he actually rubbed the back of his neck, smiling, reminding Kent of a boyfriend that he'd had in Sixth Form, who'd been shy and sweet and absolutely terrified of Erica.

"So," he said, risking leaning in a little in the weird, pooling light from overhead.

Chandler smiled. Kent loved it when he smiled. Completely loved it. He wasn't sure if he'd ever loved anything so much.

"I was just wondering." They were both standing there, hands in pockets, half leaning against the wall, half leaning into each other and it was all that Kent could do to go on breathing and stay in his own personal space. "Your place or mine?"

Kent pretended to think about it for a moment.

"Let's got to yours," he said. "I don't know if the others are home. I'd...rather it was just the two of us."

There was that smile again.  
Long hoped for - that was what it was.

*

It was hard to get comfortable in Chandler's apartment; Kent couldn't see any evidence that Chandler actually _lived_ there at all. The leather settee creaked alarmingly when he sat on the edge of it. Chandler hung his coat up and then turned, already shrugging out of his jacket.

"I'll get you a drink," he said. "What would you like? There's…" He frowned for a moment. "I've got beer or a decent vodka?"  
"I'd…" He rubbed the back of his neck, fidgeting, wincing at how bloody _noisy_ the couch was. "I'd really like a cup of tea?"

"Tea!" said Chandler, smiling. "Of course. You can help yourself to something more comfortable, if you want. Top drawer."

Kent pulled the knot on his tie loose as he wandered into Chandler's bedroom. It was immaculate, as neat and tidy as it had been the first time that Kent been there. He stripped down to his underwear and then pulled open a drawer, found crisply folded white t-shirts, pyjamas in a spectrum of greys. Everything soft. Everything absolutely clean. Cleaner than clean - Kent felt vaguely untidy just looking at it. He knew that if he opened the wardrobe, he'd find suits, shirts still wrapped in plastic. He didn't look, though - that side of Chandler made him feel small and irrelevant; it was bigger than anything he could ever hope to understand without experiencing it for himself.

The fact that Chandler functioned at all some days seemed miraculous to Kent.  
An act of ordinary magic.

He pulled on one of Chandler's t-shirts with his boxers, didn't both with bottoms - it wasn't until then that he realised how much taller and broader through the shoulders and chest Chandler was. He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned back against the headboard, couldn't get comfortable. He ended up cross-legged in the middle of the bed, absently flicking through the TV channels, finding nothing to settle on. He kept coming back to the hospital, the wan man lying in the bed, looking so close to dead, inches from Llewellyn's slab. He couldn't shake it. He stared at the TV screen, listening to the faint, economical sound of Chandler making tea down the hall.

"Tea." 

Kent started, jolted out of the reverie that he'd fallen into to find Chandler standing in the doorway with two mugs of tea, the top button of his shirt open, the knot of his tie pulled slightly loose. It wasn't much but it made him look ever-so-slightly rumpled in a way that was both strange and deeply exciting.

"Brilliant," he said.

Carefully, Chandler set down the mugs, one on either side of the bed, each on their own coaster. 

"Did you find anything to watch?" asked Chandler and Kent just shook his head and settled back on his elbows, more comfortable now Chandler was back where he could see him. He watched as Chandler undressed, undid each button, took out his cufflinks and put them in the tray on the counter. The shirt went into the hamper, his trousers were hung up. He took off his boxers and dropped them into the hamper too. Kent tilted his head on one side and enjoyed the smooth muscles in Chandler's thighs, the tight curve of his arse before he pulled on pyjamas. He didn't bother with a shirt, just lay down beside Kent, bare-chested in the warm light from the lamp.

"Nothing on."

Chandler smiled, leaned in to kiss him, thumb tracing along the line of his jaw. Kent made a soft sound, almost a whimper, pressed himself as close as he could. It was a struggle not to hold onto Chandler with both hands, not to cling to him like he was the only solid thing in the world.

"Okay?" asked Chandler, lips brushing against Kent's hairline - almost a kiss. His fingers curled against the side of Kent's neck as he tried to nod, tried to shake his head all at once and ended up just frozen, blinking, starting at Chandler and barely remembering how to breathe.

"Not really," he managed to say, finally. "Do you think...could we just…" God, he felt so stupid. "I just want to lie here with you. Nothing else - not sex or stuff, even, really. Just...here. Be here."

"We can definitely do that," said Chandler. "I even own DVDs. And there's always more tea." He pressed a chaste kiss to Kent's forehead.

This must be what being in love actually felt like.  
Erica would never stop taking the piss if he told her.

"What DVDs have you got?" he asked, finding a smile even if he did still feel shaky.

Chandler, as it turned out, had a DVD collection mostly comprised of classics - the kind of thing that always turned up on Empire's '100 Greatest Films of All Time' list - alongside a surprising amount of old MGM musicals. Kent had a secret soft spot for those; he'd grown up watching them with his parents and his sisters. Crouched in front of the cabinet, he ran his fingers along the cases.

"Which ones have you seen?" asked Chandler, sitting on the bed and sipping his tea.  
"All of them," admitted Kent. "I'm just trying to figure out what kind of nostalgia I'm in the mood for."

The past, Kent knew, could be like a blanket - warm and comforting if you wrapped it around you, stopped it from writing itself too tightly around your neck. With that in mind, he picked _The King and I_ , settled down next to Chandler and let his eyes drift close, which made the colours swim and dance.

"You're beautiful," he said, stifling a yawn against Chandler's bare chest. "You know that?"  
"Beautiful?" He could hear Chandler's smile, even if he couldn't see it. Chandler's long fingers stirred through his hair and Kent could have purred, he was so bloody happy. "That's a word for girls, isn't it?"

"Not according to Erica," said Kent, tracing his fingers around the dip of Chandler's navel. "And she'd know. She's an artist."

The older Kent got, the more sci-fi and fantasy he read - the things that he'd loved in his teens - but he still remembered the things that he read at University. Lying there, warm under the quilt, the colours dancing and swimming, Yul Brynner, he couldn't stop thinking about Oscar Wilde. He'd read some of his stuff in Uni. 

Ivory and gold.  
History rewritten. The world changed.

*

_He was walking somewhere dark, very dark. On either side of him, trees pushed up towards the sky, their leaves bloody and red. Everything about it gave him a sick, dead feeling in the pit of his stomach. The wind sounded like it was whispering, pushing words at him through the branches, through the raised roots. There was nowhere to go but onwards, the soles of his shoes crunching on the path (God, he hoped it was gravel - the thought of anything else made him feel viscerally sick). Lights shone in the tangled branches of the trees._

_And then the screaming. Wordless. Raw.  
He would have known her voice anywhere; the sound of it threw him into a dead-run along the bone white path._

_"Erica? _Erica_?"_

_He slipped - his feet skidded.  
And then he saw her. Head tilted, eyes in shadow, her hands all red._

*

> You About? (about 24 hours ago)  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> Want to get some lunch? 

 

.__________. (about 20 hours ago)  
TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
from Me.

Fine. Be that way. I'll call you later.

 

> ?!?!?!?!?!! (about ten hours ago)  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> Did I do something and I just don't know about it? I haven't pissed off Mansell, have I? I really have been trying. Give me a ring when you get this. Please?

 

? (2 minutes ago)  
TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]   
from Me.

Erica?

*

_This is Erica. Leave a name and number and I'll call you back when I'm awake. Promise_.

"Erica? It's me. This...this really isn't funny anymore. You're not eighteen anymore - you can't _do_ this. I've called mum and Liz and nobody's heard from you. You're fucking _pregnant_...you can't just disappear. I swear to God, if you've got on a plane or something, if this is Dubrovnik all over again, I'm going to fucking _kill_ you. I'll rip your bloody face off.

Erica. Erica, please.  
Give me a ring. Please.

Okay. I guess. Bye."

*

"You haven't seen Mansell, have you?" From the other side of the incident room, Riley narrowed her eyes. No matter how often Kent told her that him and Mansell were getting along better, that pretty much _everything_ was better, she still didn't entirely trust him. And, honestly, who could blame her, right?

It hadn't been him on the roof.

Kent shook his head, blowing across his tea to cool it. Through the open door, he could see Chandler in profile, the line of his jaw, the side of his neck, the crisp collar of his shirt. Kent checked his phone for what felt like the thousandth time but Erica still hadn't called.

"He's probably with Erica," he said, sinking down in his chair, hunching his shoulders slightly. "Haven't managed to get hold of her since the day before yesterday. They're probably together in a pit or something."

"Have you tried your mum?"

He had, as it happened. He'd rung her as he was making his tea that morning, endured a twenty minute treatise on the state of his youngest aunt's marriage. He had a vast tangle of aunts on his mother's side (to go with his tangle of sisters); one of them was on her third husband, another was the one who claimed to be psychic. It had taken him one cup of tea to even get a word in edgeways and then it turned out that she hadn't heard from Erica, and, if he spoke to her, could he…

Another cup of tea later, he'd finally managed to escape.  
It was getting harder and harder to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut.

"I'll nip round on my way home from work," he said.

*

The door was open and the house was dark. It felt abandoned; over the years, Kent had gotten used to the way that a house would _feel_ empty, lonely, within minutes of a person leaving. You could almost always tell when someone was home, as opposed to when someone was asleep upstairs or in the garden.

He checked every room anyway, just to make sure.

Erica's handbag was on the kitchen table. Someone had half tipped it out, its contents, its guts, spilling across the scarred table top. He'd stopped going into Erica's bag for things when he was fourteen or fifteen, preferring to bring her the bag and make her find whatever she wanted. It felt somehow dishonest, seeing the contents of her bag out it the air like that, a clutter of tampons and eyeliners, chewing gum, painkillers, pens. An A5 sketchpad, the first few pages filled with that horrible mess of faces and clawing hands. He shuddered and put it back. Her mobile was there, too - all of those emails from him, a handful of calls from his mother, another few from 'work'. He turned it over in his hand for a moment, fighting against a sudden stinging in the corner of his eyes.

"Shit."

He did the only thing that he could: he carefully put Erica's phone down on the table and then he took his own out out of his pocket and he called. He spoke quietly. He tried not to panic.

But it was like a tide. 

He didn't want to be in the house so he ended up sitting on the front step, his hands between his knees, waiting. Miles pulled up so quickly that his wheels actually squealed when he hit the brakes.

"You're alright son," he said as he walked up, reaching out to clasp Kent's shoulder with an awkward sort of warmth. "I'm here now, alright? Why don't we see what we've got, hm?"

Kent felt worse than useless, trailing Miles back into Mansell and Erica's place. It was a crime-scene - there had to be clues - but he could barely even see past the stinging in his eyes. He had his phone in his hands, turning it over and over between his fingers. Miles had put in a call for reinforcements and Kent ended up sitting out of the way on the stairs while people bustled around him.

"Signs of a struggle, son," said Miles, coming to stand beside him, leaning against the bannister. "And at least two clean set of prints that don't belong to Mansell. Girls. We found yours, but they're nothing, obviously. No blood. That's a good sign."

Numbly, Kent nodded.

"I...where's the boss?"

He hated himself for asking, trusted Miles to understand.  
There was the faintest hint of a crooked smile on the other man's face.

"He's on his way, son," he said. "He'll be here."

He nodded again.

"This is going to sound really stupid," he said. "But…" He frowned, trying to put it into words. "She's gone. I can't...My whole life, Skip, my whole _bloody_ life, I've known where she was. Not, like...not specifically. We're not psychic for anything. But like...being in the same house as someone and they've gone out of the room, so they're not in your eyeline, but you can still hear them moving around and stuff? You know that they're there. Like that."

"And now?"

"She's not in the house, Skip," said Kent, utterly certain of that fact.   
"And that's a metaphorical house, is it?"

Kent nodded. A single tear rolled down the side of his nose and dripped onto his hand.  
It wasn't a perfect metaphor, but it was as close as he was going to get.

Somebody pressed a mug of tea into his hands. He knew enough to recogise that he was being treated like a victim of loss, like a family member being handled gently before bad news. He ignored it, sipped his tea, closed his eyes. He was going to have to call his mum and dad. His sisters. Someone was going to have to tell them. He…

"Em."

With Erica gone, there was only one other person who'd be calling him that. Kent kept his eyes tight closed, fought against the sudden, desperate feeling of imminent collapse. When he opened his eyes, Chandler was standing there, leather gloves still on, keys in his hand. He held himself straight, a respectable distance away, but Kent could see the look in his eyes, see the way his hands were curled tight around his keys to keep him from reaching out.

Kent tried to say something, he really did, but all that came out was a sound that sounded like a sob. Chandler did touch him then, just a hand on his shoulder, warmer and more relaxed than Mile's had been, the grip a little tighter. One of Chandler's knees hit the stairs, bringing him a little closer.

"Joe, I…"  
"It's alright, Em. I'm here." He looked up, looked past Kent down the hall. "Miles? What've we got?"  
"Abduction, looks like," said Miles, hands in his pockets. "No blood, but signs of a struggle. No note, but prints. We're about to head back to the station with it."

Chandler nodded.

"You do that," he said. "I'll be back later."

He didn't say where he was going first.   
They probably all knew.

*

The lights were already on when Kent put his key in the lock, Chandler standing close enough behind him that his chest was pressed against Kent's back. Kent stood there for a moment, key in the door but, as yet, unturned, just leaning back into Chandler, letting the other man keep him standing for a moment.

"I'm just so tired," he mumbled.

Chandler's arm curled around him, briefly, squeezed around his chest before he let him go..

"I know."

He pushed open the door, was confronted with two pair of trainers (Converse and something in patent leather from Jones the Bootmaker), a dripping umbrella, a soaked hoodie.

He hadn't even noticed that it had been raining.

"That you, Em?" called Chris. The flat was already warm with cooking smells - usually, Kent loved it when Chris cooked. He'd sit at the table with the paper or his laptop, not talk much, but feel included in something close and fueled by love. It was stupid, but it had also been a decade of his life. Old habits died hard.

"Yeah," he said, turning to face Chandler in the narrow hallway. "It's me." Chandler's long fingered hands came up, starting to loosen the knot in Kent's tie. Kent found it in him to smile, just faintly. It felt like a hard-won victory. _Staying?_ He mouthed it, looking straight into Chandler's eyes.

Chandler nodded.  
Relief washed over Kent like the tide.

"Room for one more?" he shouted, making himself sound cheerful.  
"Sure!"

He stood still, let Chandler pull off his tie, fold it neatly and slip it into Kent's pocket. Kent took off his jacket and hung it on one of the pegs. He glanced at Chandler's but Chandler shook his head. Of course not; Chandler was going to need a hanger and wardrobe space. Suddenly bone-weary, Kent leaned forward, his forehead resting against Chandler's lips. Their fingers threaded together against Chandler's thigh.

"Don't tell them, okay?" he said, barely whispered it into the hollow of Chandler's throat. "Let me pretend everything's okay."

Chandler's free hand followed the line of Kent's spine over his shirt.

"Okay. How are you...Who am I?"  
"I don't know," said Kent, pulling back to look up into Chandler's face. "Who do you want to be?"

Chandler thought about it for a moment, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

"I'll be Joe, I think," he said, and that smile was definitely there, then. "That'll do for a start, won't it?"

Kent nodded.

He'd brought enough boyfriends home (though, admittedly, not recently, not since he met Chandler) that Chris didn't even bat an eyelid when Kent walked into the kitchen, followed by Chandler.

"Alright, both?" Chris was standing at the stove, three or four pans on the go, hair still under the bandana that he quite often wore for work. "Jesus, Em - you look like shit, mate."

"Long day," said Kent, sinking into a chair, pleased when Chandler chose the one immediately on his left, sitting down close enough that their knees touched in the shadow of the table. "Chris, this is Joe Chandler - from the station."

"Oh, shit," said Chris, recognition blooming across his face; Kent had always been closer to Chris than he was to Sam, who was always more of Erica's friend, even after he had sold out and become an accountant. "Hi!" He wiped his hand on his jeans and offered it to Chandler and Chandler glanced at Kent before he shook it.

"Nice to meet you," he said. When Chris turned back to the stove, Kent offered him a clean tea-towel. He took it with a grateful smile.

If Kent hadn't loved him already, he would have fallen head-over-heels right then.

"Sam home?"

Chris shook his head.

"Came in and went straight out again - I think he's staying at Dionne's."  
"Ah. I might…" He glanced at Chandler, who lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. "I think we might crash here."  
"Whatever floats your boat, man. I'm meeting Daisy for the quiz, so once I'm done with dinner, place is all yours."

Under the table, Kent's fingers brushed against Chandler's knee. He noticed that he was trembling ever so slightly, but then Chandler took his hand, their fingers threading together, and held him still.

*

After dinner, Chris left and Chandler ran down to his car to retrieve some spare clothes. Kent stood at the sink, up to his elbows in hot water, doing the dishes. He'd never minded doing the dishes, was the one who always ended up doing them when everyone was at home. It was almost meditative, somehow. It let him turn his brain off, not think about anything, disengage.

Usually, Erica ended up drying.

"Is it alright if I take a shower?" asked Chandler, standing in the doorway with a small black holdall in his hand. 

Kent nodded without looking around.

"Knock yourself out," he said. "Clean towels in the airing cupboard."

The kiss against the bare nape of his neck was unexpected.

"Won't take long," Chandler promised.  
Kent nodded again. Suddenly, he couldn't took for the press of tears in the back of his throat.

The shower started up and stayed running the entire time that Kent was finishing the dishes. He left them draining - Chris or Sam would put them away. In his bedroom, he stripped out of his suit trousers and his shirt, pulled on a pair of worn pyjama trousers, his favourite t-shirt, a hoodie. He put his iPhone on the dock and set 'Be Here Now' playing softly. He got under the duvet and pulled it up under his chin. The tears started slowly, just a trickle that became sobs that made his chest hurt, curled him in on himself. He hadn't thought that loss could be this physically painful. He hadn't thought that being afraid could feel like a limb being ripped off, but slowly, so slowly that he could feel every single thread of muscle and sinew stretched to its limit before it snapped.

"Oh, Em."

He hadn't even heard Chandler come in, but, suddenly, there he was, warm from the shower, still damp, smelling incredibly good as he pressed himself close, chest against Kent's back, arm around his waist. Kent shifted, fumbled, until he'd rolled over and could press himself closer, his face against the clean cotton of Chandler's t-shirt, sobbing until he physically couldn't anymore, until he was empty and scrubbed clean, open somehow. Raw. He didn't try to pull away from Chandler - it felt like he couldn't get close enough, that anything short of climbing inside him couldn't be close enough.

"It'll be alright," murmured Chandler, his cheek against Kent's hair.  
"Don't do that," said Kent, shaking his head. "We've all done that. Don't tell me that until…" He hiccuped. "Shit. _Shit_."  
"I'm here," said Chandler, his hand rubbing in slow, calming circles. Which was better, if only because it was exactly what Kent needed. Suddenly, with Chandler wrapped around him, he was too hot. He sat up, wrestling his way out of his hoodie and dropping it on the floor before he lay back down, head resting on Chandler's chest, as close he could get.

"I love you." He said it without thinking it through, just breathed it out, his eyes drifting closed. Chandler's hand didn't slow on Kent's back.  
"Do you?" he asked, and Kent could hear him smiling. "Why on earth would you do a thing like that?"

That made Kent laugh, a snotty hiccup of a sound. He shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "I always have. I can't help it. It's okay. You don't have to...I don't expect you to…"  
"Stop," said Chandler. "We don't have to rush into anything, alright? I'm not going anywhere."

Kent believed him, but he still fell asleep with one hand fisted tight in the fabric of Chandler's t-shirt, as though he was holding on for dear life.

*

_Her hands all red. Head bent. The blood dripped from the tips of her fingers, her long nails. She stretched her neck from one side to the other, a weird and bird-like movement that send a shiver down his spine._

_"Emerson," she said, and it was horror movie sing-song, not a screech or a whisper. It was her normal voice, his sister's voice, the voice that he had heard in his ear since he was old enough to speak himself. "Oh, Em."_

_"Erica," he said, took a step towards her. Over their heads, the red-leaved trees made a cathedral roof, vaulted, cavernous. He felt tiny, meaningless. She was almost within reach. She opened her eyes and there wasn't anything different about them, not really, but the look in them, the sheer, fathomless_ horror _in her eyes._

_"Please, Em" she said, and then she opened her mouth and screamed and_

And he woke screaming, a panic that wasn't his own pulsing behind his eyelids, his heart racing, his stomach a clenched fist. Chandler was sitting up beside him, blinking, flushed in the light of the hurriedly switched on lamp.

"What? Em, _what_?"  
"I…" He'd always been at a loss to explain it to people who had never experienced it: the link between them. It wasn't whole thoughts, not communication, but emotions and pain had always passed between them. When the Krays had slashed him open like that, he'd had fifteen missed calls from Erica by the time he woke up after his surgery. She'd passed out at work when the pain hit her.

She'd been gone since the last time he'd spoken to her but now, all he could feel was visceral, bone-deep fear.

"Kent," said Chandler, firmly, his Superintendent voice and Kent felt himself snap-to in a way that made him pathetically grateful. 

"She's...I'm…" He swallowed hard. "Jesus, Joe, she's so scared. I…"

It took a moment, with Chandler right there and Oasis still playing, to realise that his phone was ringing.

"Emerson?" she said, her voice echoey and far away. "Em, is that you?"  
"Erica?" he said, scrambling more upright in bed, phone pressed against his ear. "Are you okay? Where are you?"  
"Everything's wrong, Em. It's so, so wrong."  
"What's wrong, Erica? You can tell me."  
"Finlay. The baby. It's all got to end, Em. It's all got to stop."  
"What do you mean _stop_ , Erica. You're not making any sense."  
"It'll be easier after it stops. He shouldn't have done it to me, Em. He should have known better." He heard her drag in a shivering breath. "She says to tell him that she says 'hello'."  
"Who? Who says hello?"  
"Let him speak to her, Em."  
"Who?"  
"Joseph. Give him the phone, Em."

Kent held out the phone and turned away. Suddenly, he felt an intensely, painful need to throw up. He bent down over his knees, cradling his head in his hands, trying to breathe deeply. Chandler didn't say anything but, when Kent looked back over his shoulder, he was listening intensely. His eyes narrowed a little.

He handed the phone back, already scrambling out of bed. Kent watched him, dumbly.

"Where are you going?"  
" _We're_ going." He picked up a pair of jeans from the back of a chair, tossing them to Kent. "She said that the three of them are in Bow cemetery. We've been invited."  
"Wait - three of them?" Kent pauses in the process of pulling on jeans with no pants.  
"Erica, Mansell," Chander paused, pulling on his trousers. "Louise Iver."  
"Wait…"  
"Yes, I know what Miles thinks about Louise Iver," said Chandler. "I'm starting to be sorry I doubted him. Ready?"

Kent nodded, zipping his hoodie up.

"Let's go," he said.

*

In the middle of the night, the main gate on Southern Grove was going to be locked, so Chandler parked the Range Rover on Hamlet way, and they slipped through the kissing gate and into the park itself. The cemetery wasn't far from where they'd come in. In the dark, the trees threw strange shadows. Silently, Kent told himself that he was a grown man, a Copper, and that he had nothing to be scared of.

But, Jesus, they both knew better than that, didn't they?  
He couldn't help but think about that woman who'd told them that the Devil was walking in Whitechapel.

It was Mansell that he saw first, slumped against one of the stones. His hands were bound him, a gag pulled tight between his pale lips. Blood had blossomed on the front of his shirt. Chandler dropped into a crouch, taking Mansell's pulse with two fingers, fumbling for his phone in his pocket with his free hand.

"He's alive," he said, already dialling '999'. "Go."

Kent carried on walking, speeding up, weaving his way among the stones, trying not to slip. He didn't call out, ignored the flickers of movement in the corners of his eyes. It was cold, damp, the wind whistling through the clawing branches overhead. Suddenly, he remembered his dreams - the gravel path, the blood red leaves. And Erica with all of that blood on her hands.

"There you are," said a voice, thin and reedy. "Still not much to look at, are you, dear? Wet behind the ears china doll of a thing, aren't you? She's much stronger than you are, your sister. For a while, I didn't think she was going to break at all. Of course, they always do, dear. In the end. In the end, dear, they always come when I call. Even the good ones. _Especially_ the good ones."

She stood to one side of a cracked, half-tumbled mausoleum, five foot nothing in a clumpy, old lady heels. Louise Iver in a camel coat, a paisley scarf neatly knotted around her throat. Her grey hair was immaculate. Both of Kent's grandmothers, his granny, his nonna, were dead, but she looked exactly like someone's nan, standing there. But only for a moment. Then, something _slid_ , somehow, and, In the dark, her lipsticked smile looked stretched and weird.

"We got to Mansell," he said, squaring his shoulders, trying to convince himself that he was feeling brave. "He's going to be alright. You didn't kill him."  
"Oh, dearie. It's never the man that I'm really worried about. Can't say the same for you, can we? Did your mummy love you quite the same, after you told her that you were a filthy little pervert?"

"Excuse me?" There wasn't any sign of Erica; he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.  
"They're not supposed to love you any less," she sing-songed, "But they do, always. After you break their hearts."  
"That's not what I meant."  
"Never the men, dearie. Always the girls. Girls are sweeter. They tempt better."  
"You've got my sister," said Kent. "I want her back."  
"There are twins in the Bible you know," said Louise Iver, turning away from her, walking deeper into the cemetery.  
"Cain and Abel," he said. "Yeah, I know."  
"Twins are fascinating," she said, still walking ahead of him, casting weird, giant, dancing shadows that seemed to move entirely independently of the woman herself. "Very recently, I realised that making her break _him_ wouldn't be enough." She glanced back at him and, in the dark, it looked exactly like her eyes were solid black from lid to lid, just for a second before she blinked. "That's when I realised that I'd need you, too. Like pieces in a puzzle, you two. Like sides of a coin. Making her spill _his_ blood wasn't ever going to do the entire job."

She ducked into one of the mausoleums. Kent found that his palms were sweating, his fingers trembling. He followed her into the dark. Inside the cramped space, there was an odd, indistinct light and Erica, slumped in a corner like a broken doll. When he saw her, Kent entirely forgot that Louise Iver was standing there at all. He dropped to his knees and half scrambled, half crawled to Erica's side, reaching to take her pulse the way Chandler had with Mansell's - he'd done that course at Hendon, too. It took him a moment, but he found it, weaker than he would have liked. There wasn't any blood that he could see. He had his phone in his hand.

"Oh, no, dearie," said Louise Iver, sat primly on a lump of fallen stone. "I don't think so."  
His fingers went numb; his phone tumbled from his hand to lie in the dry, dead leaves.

"It's too late, Em," said Erica, lifting her head and staring at him. There were fat tears rolling down her face; he hadn't seen her cry like that since he was a teenager. "I was confused but then she told me what I had to do." He hadn't even noticed the knife in her hand. It was a stanley knife - Erica's desk had been littered with them since she first started making art. She turned the knife over in her hand. The tip of the caught in the thin fabric of her dress. "Findlay didn't die, did he, Em?" She lost her words, hiccuping on a sob. "But you're going to have to. You first, then me. That's what she said."

She flipped the knife in her hand with practised ease - she'd gone through a paper sculpture period. The blade was pointing towards him now.

"Don't," he said, wrapping his fist around hers, holding onto her as tight as he could without hurting her. "She's evil, Erica. Jesus. Don't listen to her. Listen to me."  
"I can't, Em," said Erica, still crying, tears rolling down her face ceaselessly. "Can' you hear her? She makes so much sense."  
"I can't hear a word she's saying, Erica, alright? It's just you and me and this? This is bloody stupid," he said, on his knees in front of her, cradling her face with one hand, his other still holding onto her closed fist, the one with the knife. He was so, so aware of how close the blade was to him, the thin fabric of hoodie and t-shirt and then his skin, just his skin. "You're so happy with...with Findlay, and the baby. All of it. You love all of it. I could _feel_ it, Erica. Clear as day. I've _never_ felt you as happy as that."

"I forgot to ask her," said Louise Iver, somewhere over Ken's shoulder. "How she feels when you're with your fancy piece. Your _Detective Inspector_. How it makes her feel to know that you're a filthy faggot?" She said it so mildly, but Kent could still feel the hatred oozing out of every single word.

Erica was stronger that he remembered. Her hand was pressing down even though he was holding onto it. He twisted her hand, trying to move it, trying to get his palm between him and the knife, something. He just needed to hold on. Somewhere there were sirens wailing, out in the dark. The blade dug into his skin - pain spiked through him, a sick and tearing feeling as the blade pressed deeper - but he didn't let go of her. He felt his skin split, felt that spot just to one side of his belly button turn hot and liquid. He held onto her, felt the small bones in her hands grind, kept the knife from pressing any deeper. He'd seen people stabbed in the guts before; it wasn't something he wanted to experience for himself. He leaned in, far as he could, his forehead pressed against hers, their bodies an arch over the knife in her hand.

"She's in my head, Em."  
"So am I," he whispered. "I've always been there, babe. So listen to me, alright? Do you...Do you remember when we were very little and Mum kept trying to get us to sleep in different beds but we wouldn't, couldn't, so we used to always end up in the same bed and we had those...those stupid tapes that came with the magazines? With fairytales on them. They were yellow and you kept them in, like...red folders? Do you remember this? And we used to listen to them but we had to share headphones. And I always...I always remember the one about the kid who got the ice stuck in his eye and…"  
"Mirror, babe," she said, and she seemed more present, somehow. More _her_. Kent felt the knife start slipping from her numb hand. There was blood on the front of his t-shirt, but he couldn't tell how much. "It was a mirror. The devil broke the mirror - made everyone see everything all...weird." She blinked, once, twice. He saw the haze go out of her eyes and she sat up, staring at the blood on the front of his t-shirt. She made a sound - raw, animal, inarticulate with panic. Kent shook his head, cradling her face with both hands, making her look at him.   
"It's okay, Erica. It's okay. Look at me - it's fine. It's my blood, okay? It's only a scratch. I'm right here. Mansell's fine. Everything's going to be okay."

Somewhere, he could hear Chandler shouting. He leaned away from her, just for a moment. It was more than a scratch. He felt himself swoon, just a little. His hands tightened on her. He held on.

"Here! We're in here!"

Erica had collapsed into him, curling up half in his lap in a way that she hadn't done since they were kids. Her knees were drawn up as high as she could get them.

"Oh, God," she mumbled, faced pressed into his hoodie. "What the bloody hell happened, Em? How'd I get here? What did you do to yourself? Where's Findlay?"

"It's alright, Erica," he said, pressing a kiss against her temple, his other hand pressed against the spreading blood on the front of his shirt. His head felt dizzy, light - like he'd been opened up and scooped clean. "It's okay. I'm right here."

It was only then, watching the the torches come closer through the open side of the mausoleum that Kent realised that Louise Iver was gone, as utterly as if she'd never been there at all. Dimly, he was aware of Erica cradling him, pulling him in close against her, the smell of her perfume, the warmth of her hand on the back of his neck and the swinging of the light.

*  
 _He is dreaming. He is dreaming and they are five years old, incapable of sleeping alone. They sleep nose to nose, tangled together. He doesn't really know where he stops, where she starts. They don't need to talk. The very tips of her fingers tap out words on his arm. Somewhere, downstairs, he can hear his mum and dad talking. Erica breathes. He feels it on his lips and…_

He opened his eyes. Hospital rooms were violently indistinct places, all white edges and monitors. The needle was a painful fixed point in his arm. Erica was lying at his side, her heartbeat shoved in tight against his arm.

He felt five years old again. He felt whole. 

Through the open door, he watched Chandler wash methodically in a small sink. He was stripped to the waist, working inch by inch. Kent sighed, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. He shifted in the bed. Someone indistinct, stitches pulled and then settled.

"Hullo," he said.

Chandler glanced back over his shoulder. His smile was that sudden, bright one that had so suddenly, so recently become familiar.

"There you are," he said.  
"Is she okay?" asked Kent, turning his face to press his nose into the wild curls of Erica's hair. "The baby?"  
"Both fine," said Chandler, pulling his shirt back on before he came back to the bed, dropping down into a chair that he'd clearly recently vacated. "And Mansell, too. You did well, Em. You did _remarkably_ bloody well."  
"Did you see her?"  
"Louise Iver?" Chandler shook his head. "She was gone by the time we got there."

Kent nodded.

"How bad is it?"  
"Not bad," said Chandler. "It might leave a scar, but you've been through worse. "

Kent wasn't entirely sure that that was true, but he also didn't know how to explain it to anyone who wasn't Erica.

"You can go, if you want," he said, his cheek still against Erica's hair. "We're fine here."

He watched Chandler hesitate for just a moment before he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Kent's mouth.

"Just to get a shower," he promised. "I'm coming back."

Somehow, that felt like a revelation. With Chandler leaning over him like that, with Erica on the other sight, Kent felt bracketed, held, palpably loved.

*

They watched Camelot under a blanket on Kent's sofa. Everybody else was out so they had the flat to themselves, the lights turned down low, tea in the pot and a beer each. Chandler had crouched down and lit a cluster of candles in the middle of the coffee table. Underneath his t-shirt, Kent was still wearing a dressing, but the stitches were nearly ready to come out. Just another scar.

He lay back against Chandler, head against his chest. Chandler's fingers brushed along his waistband, up under his shirt, against the edge of his dressing, the dip of his navel. On screen, Vanessa Redgrave was draped in fur, the most beautiful woman than Richard Harris had ever seen.

"My mother loved this one," said Chandler, suddenly. "This one in particular."  
"Yeah?" asked Kent, leaning back to look up at him properly.   
"I think she thought that it was romantic."

Kent leaned forward to reach for his tea and winced. Gently, Chandler nudged him backwards, leaning past him to lift the mug, bring it to his hands. Kent took a sip, eyelashes fluttering.

"I could do this forever," he said. It took a moment to realise that he wasn't embarrassed by that admission, wasn't worried or scared. Wasn't _hurting_. Happy. He was just happy.

It was much less complicated than he'd thought it might be.

He couldn't see Chandler properly, not from where he was sitting. He sat forward, shifting carefully so that he could face the other man, his mug cradled in his lap. The look on Chandler's face was equal parts startled and please. It took a moment before blue eyes settled on Kent's face.

"Alright," he said. "Let's try it."

Try was alright - he didn't need more than try. He wasn't asking for forever. Just as much as they could manage for as long as he could do it. He'd stopped imagining that anything needed to be perfect - he'd found where to draw the line.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Chandler's mouth, felt him melt and soften into it, lean forward ever so slightly. They stayed like that for a moment, kissing slowly, unhurried. Chandler's hand rested against Kent's thigh. It felt like he was knitting back together, sitting there - mending in more ways than one.

"It's not going to be easy," said Chandler, his lips damp, eyes drifting down to Kent's mouth and back again. "I'm not easy to live with."

"I don't want it to be easy," said Kent, slipping his hand inside the collar of Chandler's shirt, tracing his thumb along the sharp line of Chandler's collarbone. "I'm...I'm not interested in easy."

It wasn't that romantic. Kent had never known how to be romantic.  
But it did feel like a very definite start.

*

> hi hi  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> How're you feeling?.

 

re: hi hi  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

Fat. Went for a scan this morning.

 

> re: re: hi hi  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> and?!?!

 

re: hi hi  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

What's a better name for a boy than Emerson? I've already picked Beatrice for the girl. We can call her Bumble.

 

> re: re: hi hi  
> TO: **Erica** [ithurtstobecome@gmail.com]  
>  from me.
> 
> There ARE no better names than Emerson.
> 
> (I love you).

 

re: hi hi  
TO: **Me** [emerson.j.kent@gmail.com]  
from Erica.

Tosser.

(I love you too).


End file.
